


Ritual

by suckersoprano



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Exploration, Introspection, Other, in-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suckersoprano/pseuds/suckersoprano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chell has a trinket she's kept secret, but she's finally ready to let it go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> This came from [This](http://punmonster.tumblr.com/post/18352764707/the-portal-fandom-missed-something-it-is) post after a friend examined Chell's model and found something interesting.

                In her down time, she took her hair down, too. It felt disgusting, clinging to her neck and shoulders because it was so dirty, but it was a ritual she engaged in every time she sat through a testing room elevator, every time she had to take a rest hiding in a certain nook of a chamber. Every time she walked through the rippling blue of an emancipation grid, she checked her hair, fretting that the field of energy that was such a threat to her inner ear and teeth would take away the one piece of sentimentality she allowed herself. It never did, much to her surprise, but her analytical mind often wondered why it didn’t fizzle away the jumpsuit that was her only source of warmth and protection.

                She reasoned it was so caked with filth that similarly clung to her body and hair that it was nearly indistinguishable to the energy as a part of herself. That’s what it felt like, really; some scrap of herself that was long forgotten, but still clung to as a final piece of sanity in this hell she’d been condemned to survive in. Her mind almost let her forget where she’d taken it from, how she’d come across the small piece of plastic and metal that kept her hair out of her face. It was strange she cared so much about it; it wasn’t even _hers._

                Cruelly, her dreams didn’t let her forget how she’d come across the trinket. It was only when she was not in the mandatory testing stasis did she dreamlessly sleep; the only reason to look forward to such a thing. When she was huddled up next to cubes and near warm air ducts, it was when her mind tried to remember; times before she was a test subject, times when she had more choices than ‘die or keep moving.’ Ever practical, her mind didn’t remember much. What did show up in her mind’s eye was important and evocative; it was rare she didn’t wake with a start, or in tears that she hid from the wide gazing red eyes of the security cameras in a fit of pride. 

                Sleeping stasis erased a lot of those memories, too, but she did remember the last time she saw another person. The person was dead now, a woman like herself. She was older, clear by her wispy sliver hair that was held up by the very same clip that currently adorned Chell’s hair. It was right before she was sucked into the testing track, that woman tried to save her. She’d shoved her into a stasis chamber without a word and pressed the buttons to make her sleep. Chell kept her eyes open long enough to see her start to choke and die from some gaseous green material that flooded her vision.

                Later, when she was revived, that clip and a few strands of brittle hair lay on the table with the radio and clipboard. The body was gone, but the clip was quickly picked up and shoved into the unruly mess of her hair, pulling it away from her face. That woman saved her life at the expense of her own, it was only right she carry her memory with her. It was a long time since she’d forgotten her face, her name, or if they were related in anyway or if she was some faceless guardian angel. The exact circumstances could have been some creation of her mind anyway. She just knew she picked it up from someone who had given her the chance to keep going. So she did.

                The next time she woke from stasis sleep, her hands immediately went to that clip when her mind snapped on with the rest of her body, as per habit. Her hair was undone and put up again, just like she was used to; it was still there, she realized with relief. She realized at that moment she wasn’t where she thought should be… She wasn’t dead. Chell examined her surroundings and found this to be different than her testing track sleeping pod. A chipper voice nearly scared her out of her skin, but her face darkened when she realized she was _still_ in _her_ clutches. _She_ should be dead, that massive _thing_ with a woman’s voice should be _destroyed_ along with Chell’s broken battered body on the pavement of the Aperture Labs parking lot, but Chell was still _here. That meant that female-voiced horror could be, too._

                She remembered lying, bleeding on asphalt. Her fist met the wall when she suddenly recalled being dragged away, talking about the ‘ _party escort submission position.’_ It looked like she would’ve died free, but NO. She was still HERE and…

                Chell realized that the male voice above her was repeating instructions. She carried them out as they seemed to be for her own good, checking her motor skills and gauging her perceived mental health. Someone drug her back down into this hell hole and in doing so, gave her another chance at life. She didn’t know if she should be grateful or hate whomever did it. It was something she’d ponder before falling back on the much more comfortable bed and drifting to sleep.

                She made a resolution to honor both her guardian angels when she woke. Get out of here and live or die trying.

 

                The next time she touched her hairclip was when she was staring at a third… angel. Well, assuming the blinking blue eye chattering away in front of her was just that. She didn’t know what to make of it, other than a frank annoyance. It had an encouraging voice that sounded deceptively human. Chell was wary of trusting it because of that. Even worse when it nearly killed her taking apart the room she was sleeping in.

                It told her to hold on and how they were going to go to a docking bay or something. Sure enough, Chell clung to the wall farthest from the damage wrecked on the other side of the room; the whole think shuddered with a huge jolt. Either this… ball was an angel or the source of her death. She was all too glad to jump through the broken glass of what she recognized as her previous room in the testing track just to get away from her new talkative ‘partner.’ She stood in the shattered glass and waited for the portal to open at the behest of that same chipper male voice she heard when she first woke. She stepped out of it and carried out her tried and true habit, pulling her hair down and putting it right back up. It was placed firmly in the back of her head and she was through the beginning chamber without a second thought.

                Again, there was the material emancipation grid. Chell hesitated, but walked through and stood in the much tinier elevator, checking her clip. It was still intact. Another familiar test waited ahead which she passed quickly, efficiently to see her new companion greeting her behind the safety of the frames of fallen testing panels.

                “Hey hey! You made it! There should be the portal gun on that podium over there,” it spouted excitedly.

                Chell turned to look at that podium. It sparked faintly, but there was nothing there.

                “But I… don’t see it. Want to go and have a look, there?” the ball offered oh-so helpfully.

                She rolled her eyes and stepped into the small chamber the podium stood in, only to have the panels beneath her feet crumble away. The shaky foundation when she pressed her boots to it had her expecting it and she fell into the darkness without a sound, hitting a cold, dirty splash of water. She could hear the blue-eyed companion yelling at her above, asking her if she saw the device before hastily asking if she was alive.

                Chell moved on without even glancing upward and came into a large, naturally lit enclosure, filled with huge murals. She grimaced when she saw the one of a group of scientists gathered around a hanging machine. It was _her_ , when they made her obviously. The next one had horrific, agonized faces and Chell immediately turned away, only glancing at it. She saw another with a figure holding up what appeared to be the portal gun, proudly displaying that they have obtained it. Next to it, was a smaller painting of… that machine offering her cake. Chell sneered at the AI in the painting and almost missed the test subject. Dark haired, female; it was… her. She tilted her head at the painting and moved up to the makeshift platform staring curiously. She turned, eyes moved to the largest painting, almost hidden by a lack of light, seeing a flash of familiar orange. She stood in view of a huge, accurate painting of… herself, again. She’d only seen her face in the reflection of acid and at a distance through a portal, but it was unmistakable.

                She appeared like… she was sleeping. Something strong struck her right in the heart, it painfully reminded her off her guardians who had gone and saved her life, putting her to sleep so she could persevere. Whoever had painted this… something innate told her they had done it.  Her mind immediately flashed to the paintings in the small hideaways she’d found in the first testing track. It was… that person. That one with the fixation on the cube, the one who tried to warn her that _she_ _was always watching,_ the very same that saved her life countless times when she was lost in the bowels of the facility.

                They were her guardian angel and it looked by the way they had painted her… she was their angel as well. She hadn’t seen another human being since that day she was shoved into stasis, but she was someone’s hope. That struck an odd chord in her. There was no way that person was alive anymore. Only god knew how long it’d been since the first time. Chell swallowed a ball of emotion and stooped to pick up the fallen portal device at her feet. With her free hand she yanked the hair clip from her hair and set it in the gun’s place. She’d leave what gave her hope here for the person who saved her.

                Chell ripped a ragged piece of cloth from her jumpsuit arm and tied her hair with it instead, pulling it away from her face like she needed. She stepped off of the platform and stood in front of her portrait. She laid the clip down in front of it and reverently bowed her head before shooting a blue portal through her painted copy’s midsection, stepping through to the ramp that led her to somewhere better lit. She cast one last glance to the small clip before moving on. Now everything that held her here would stay behind. Now it was time to get out.


End file.
